Genki Sushi used to have a presence at 1 Utama before all their outlets were shuttered due to the main franchiser pulling out. I like their sushi, which I find better than a lot of the quasi-Japanese chains out there. Genki Sushi is a real Japanese franchise. You’ll be surprised at how many Japanese F&B outlets in Malaysia are wholly local. Some are even based out of Kepong! That’s about as Japanese as my mom.

It’s been a few long years but now they’re back in Sunway Pyramid. They’ve just been open a week and I went to check them out on the Tuesday public holiday. The big thing is their 1.5 times bigger sushi serving (compared to other restaurants) at RM 4.80/piece. They call this menu Dai Man Zoku (big satisfaction) and I ordered a few items from this selection.

I was told their Jumbo Crab Stick is really good. I didn’t want to like it coz I knew it wouldn’t be real crab meat at just RM 4.80. It’s surimi but it still tasted really good. I enjoyed it very much despite my reservations. It’s very flavorful. I also ordered the Prime Salmon Belly, Red Shrimp, Grilled Eel and Yellowtail from the Dai Man Zoku menu. Salmon Roe Gunkan and Scallop from their Premium Collection (RM 6.80/piece) was delicious as well. The scallops were exceedingly sweet and delicious. Two thumbs up.

It also featured in their Trio Sashimi (Salmon, Scallops, Surf Clam) for RM 22.80. I finished up with a Grilled Eel Mini Don (RM 12.80). They’re more expensive than other local sushi chains but their toppings are way more generous than the razor thin slices of Sushi Mentai or the fat, square, rice-heavy offerings of Sushi King. Genki Sushi is one of the better conveyor belt sushi restaurants here. They’ve even revamped their delivery system to a bullet train called Kousoku Express that sends food straight from the kitchen to your table.

I have a soft spot for progressive cuisine. My favorite restaurant to date is Gaggan. I enjoy the modern take on Indian food – licking plates and eating with my hands felt fun and liberating. I was also impressed by Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin. Thus, I made sure to include Labyrinth in my latest Singapore trip. Labyrinth has 1 Michelin star and does a modern take on Singaporean cuisine, using many techniques from molecular gastronomy to propel local Singapore food into the 21st century.

I came here with a friend for their Pre Theatre Menu (SGD 68) which is the same as their lunch menu, served at 6 pm. You’re directed to a lounge when you arrive and served murukku and apple flavored water. Service is a little stiff and formal from two of the waiters, like they aspire to a caricature of what they imagine French Michelin-starred restaurants are like. Having been to France and dined at Michelin starred restaurants in Paris, I can assure you it’s not like that over there. Some staff are really friendly though.

Unfortunately, one of the Indian or Malay waiters had a really bad case of halitosis, like there were pounds of ripe old tonsil stones stuck somewhere in his throat. That was a real turn-off in a meal setting. I usually don’t comment on things like these unless it affects the dining experience, and this did. I had to hold my breath while he explained the dishes and wait for the nauseating miasma to disperse before I could get started on my food. It was a real struggle.

Dinner started with Oolong Tea Egg. This is described as “Uncle William’s quail egg” and it’s one of their signature items. It’s a quail egg with a liquid interior yolk which is not the yolk. The liquid has been injected into the egg to replace the yolk. It’s very smoky. I liked this.

The second snack is “Nasi Lemak” Cheong Fun – chicken skin, ikan bilis and egg yolk gel. It’s a soft pillow of chee cheong fun (CCF) that tastes like nasi lamak due to the spicy anchovy sambal inserted inside. The egg yolk gel coats the CCF bite to add some creaminess and the crispy shard of chicken skin provided a nice texture. Decent.

Heartland Waffle ended the trio of snacks, described as local chicken liver pate and goji berry jam. The waffle is soft and fluffy. Pay attention KFC! This is how you should do a waffle!! It has a strange, intense flavor from the liver and goji berries that I didn’t like at first, but I enjoyed it after chewing for a while. It’s very tasty. This is the best one out of the three starters.

There was a complimentary snack described as coconut butter with deep fried buns. These are the same mantou you’ll see served with chilli crab in Singapore. It was a nice flavor but it’s not ready for prime time yet. The butter was very hard to spread. My friend called this “experimental” which is the best way to describe the dish. I told her I’ll be stealing that word for my blog.

The plates sequence started next with “Ang Moh” Chicken Rice. This is another one of their famous dishes which features home-milled rice flour, grandma’s chilli sauce and braised chicken. There are chilli strands on top of the dish, which reminds me of A Noodle Story. The dish tasted interesting but it’s not my favorite thing. It is remarkably similar to one of my failed meal prep dishes – creamy chicken.

This was my favorite dish of the night. The fish was cooked well and tasted good. I enjoyed the crispy vegetables on top of the fish. I thought the deep fried vegetables were a little too oily but overall, this creation has very nice flavors. I love the sweet herbal soup.

There are two options for your main. My friend went for the Indonesian Pork Collar. It’s char siew, mixed greens, kale and pickled bak choy. I liked the fatty char siew and the flavored dust. It’s delicious but I don’t think I’ll enjoy eating the whole thing since the fat and sugar will be a bit cloying after a few mouthfuls. The pickled bak choy is very important for cutting through the rich flavors.

I had the Toh Thye San Farm French Poulet (SGD 10 supplement). This is a Cantonese style roast chicken with glutenous rice and egg yolk from Freedom Farm. There are two parts to this dish – the fillet of roasted chicken and the medallion of sauced chicken inside glutenous rice. I liked the latter but the former tasted a bit plain. I thought it was sous vide chicken but the waiter told me it’s been cooked for 5 hours at 55 degrees Celsius in the oven with sugar on the skin to crisp it up. There are crispy prawn cracker crumbs on top, which I thought was a nice though.

Next up came the palate cleanser called Clam Leaf Snow made with rosella meringue and textures of grapes before the dessert course. Our waiter even brought out a rosella plant so we could see what it was made from, but this felt more like a rehearsed, robotic scene than a genuine attempt to add value, which I experienced at Waku Ghin and Shinji.

I did enjoy the palate cleanser though. It was quite good for something meant to just reset your tastebuds. I particularly liked the fruits at the bottom.

The dessert course was Cristal De Chine Caviar, basically a modern interpretation of kaya toast. It is made with kaya ice cream and Sing Hong Loong toast. This was excellent! I love the crispy bread the nice caramelized kaya ice cream. The kaya is salted too so there’s burnt notes and salty notes. I also enjoyed the hot (bread) and cold (kaya ice cream) temperature play. The edible miniature maple leaf was a nice touch. 10/10. I’ll eat the hell out of this if they served it separately.

Labyrinth ended the dinner with a duo of seasonal treats. The petit fours were durian macaron and chiffon pandan. The durian macaron is very strong tasting. Even though I like fresh durian, I’m not a fan of durian desserts. It’s a no from me. The chiffon pandan was a plain, unsweetened hunk of cake. I think it’s supposed to be a palate cleanser after you eat the tiny durian macaron.

The bill came up to SGD 172 (RM 524) for two. The dishes at Labyrinth tries to be creative for the sake of being creative. A lot of the techniques were unnecessary and forced into the dish to provide some pizzazz. The smoke-and-mirrors felt like an attempt to divert your attention away from the very average food. There was nothing extraordinary about the taste or execution of most dishes. It did not make me want to return. Labyrinth would have gotten into my Bottom 3 if not for Shisen Hanten, The Song of India and Crystal Jade Golden Palace.

I’ll like to tell you a tale of extreme disappointment. Let me preface this blog post by saying Crystal Jade Golden Palace was the worst Michelin star restaurant I’ve been to in Singapore. The food was very mediocre, and the prices were incommensurate to the ingredients and experience. I wanted my itinerary to include one homegrown local chain, so I came here despite warnings and objections from other people. My dad has been to this exact outlet and said it was disappointing. He never says things like that.

I was seated just inches from the waitress station so there was constantly movement and noise around me – shouted orders, staff getting chopsticks, water refills. Crystal Jade Golden Palace tries to squeeze so much revenue out of the outlet that there are chairs and tables where there should be none. I came here to try their SGD 48 set meal but was told that it’s only available for lunch. This wasn’t stated at all on their website or menu. The dinner menu starts at SGD 78 and it doesn’t look as appealing.

I went for Executive Set Menu C at SGD 88 instead. It took me ages to decide coz nothing in the menu items sounded appealing to me. I didn’t think there was anything special about the dishes but I silenced the inner voice telling me to run and picked one almost at random. I was offered edamame beans, which was charged at SGD 2. Even my tap water incurred a SGD 1 cost!

Teochew Marinated Appetizer Combination (Two Varieties). The deep-fried ball thing was very ordinary. It made no impression whatsoever. I don’t even know why there’s a rice cracker beneath it as it adds nothing to the dish. The slice of duck with vinegar was likewise forgettable. It’s just a plain, below average piece of meat doused with vinegar. If I didn’t like the kind, grandmotherly waitress serving me, I might have been tempted to cut my losses and leave right now.

Crab Meat & Fish Maw Thick Soup in Teochew Style. This is a very fatty soup. It tastes like it’s made of pure collagen. So thick! So viscous! I felt I can overturn the bowl like a DQ Blizzard. The soup stuck to my mouth and coated my lips with intense flavor. I was at the border of loving it and hating it. I’m not sure how to feel. I’m confused! I’ve been reflecting on the soup for a few days and decided I love it as I’ve been craving for that insanely thick mouthfeel since. This was the best dish of the night.

Baked Cod Fish with Miso Sauce. Did this taste delicious? No, it was merely competent. There’s nothing special about the dish. The tapioca chip and sprig of parsley looks out of place. To be fair, this wasn’t bad – I enjoyed the creamy, sweet sauce with the fish. But that’s the thing, it’s just acceptable. Adequate. Average.

Sautéed Vegetable with Wild Mushroom. This one really pissed me off. It was literally a few scraps of carrot, peas and mushrooms in an unremarkably bland sauce. The only thing of note is the deep fried enoki mushroom, of which there were 2. The size of this vegetable dish is more or less the area of a credit card, and not much thicker!

Stewed Handmade Noodle with Baby Abalone. The noodles were overcooked and under-seasoned. There was a lack of any appreciable flavor in this dish. The baby abalone was serviceable but there was nothing particular about it. The dish was edible for sure, but so middle-of-the-road that any hawker center could do a better job. I was so hungry I finished everything anyway.

Chilled Mango Puree with Pomelo & Sago. This looks and tastes like a lazy cook decided to randomly toss in several leftover ingredients to increase the average cheque size. It was below my already lowered expectations, if that’s even possible. A sad end to a depressing dinner. The bill for dinner came up to SGD 107 (RM 327).

(This is a photo of the chicken and noodles I ate at home immediately after this dinner to illustrate how hungry I was)

Dinner would have been cheaper if I had ordered a la carte. I’ll have a more filling meal too, but I wanted to check out their set menus, which is supposed to highlight their best dishes and abilities. Maybe that was my mistake. I had to destroy a bowl of leftover chicken and noodles my sister’s maid cooked when I got home coz I was still very hungry. The portions were way too small!

I don’t mind paying for exemplary food. My most expensive dinner was RM 1,615 at Gaggan and I walked away a very happy man. I recommended Gaggan to my sister and all my friends. I even sang praises to random strangers who didn’t ask. But it really makes me angry when I pay good money and receive middling, ordinary and subpar food. Crystal Jade Golden Palace was a letdown of epic proportions. I cannot un-recommend it enough.

Rolina was the second ever curry puff stall to get a coveted Bib Gourmand award in the Michelin Guide Singapore this year. The first was J2 Famous Crispy Curry Puff. Interestingly, J2 claimed in an interview that most curry puffs are similar so they didn’t know why they were selected. Haha. Since I’m giving out anecdotes today, the name of Rolina is a mispronunciation of Novena. Chinese speakers regularly say “Rolina” instead of “Novena” so they used the Singlish pronunciation as their stall name.

Rolina only has two types of curry puff – Sardine and Curry Chicken & Egg. They both go for SGD 1.50 each. They’re much smaller than J2’s curry puff and the crust is different. These babies are handmade and the crust is buttery and thin. There’s a decent amount of stuffing inside too. The owner was exceedingly friendly and courteous. I found this unusual in a hawker center stall but most welcome.

I brought some back to Malaysia but it’s not as nice after reheating since the skin doesn’t keep its crispness. It’s much better when it’s hot and fresh. The buttery crunchy skin is an important part of what makes a curry puff good. I liked both the curry chicken and sardine but the sardine one resonated with me more coz it’s spicy. It’s a lot spicier than I expected. Very good.

Nouri is one of the new restaurants who received their first Michelin star in the Michelin Guide Singapore 2018. I was excited to check out this place. I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. The main seating inside the restaurant is a large white marble dining table which flanks the kitchen. The chefs literally plates in front of you so you can see them working while you eat. Chef-owner Ivan Brehm was there to cook and explain the dishes to all the customers.

I love places like this coz I’m a total food nerd. Burnt Ends have a similar setup. The same restaurateur group is behind both. This makes the dining experience more intimate as you can see the elements that goes into your dishes and talk to the chefs while they’re preparing your food. I was here with my dad for their “Teishoku” style a la carte lunch. You choose the main (vegetable, pork or fish) you want – appetizers and desserts are included.

The meal started with a slice of rice sourdough bread made in-house with basil butter. The bread was warm and crusty – delicious! I like how easily the basil butter spreads. This is a minor thing but some restaurants – even Michelin starred ones – serve cold butter that’s nigh impossible to spread. Both my dad and I loved this.

Chef-owner Ivan called this complimentary appetizer a Brazilian street snack. He explained that many people here think it’s Indian but it originates from South America. The caviar-like pearls on top are okra seeds. That’s ingenious! There’s tons of flavor in both the crispy lentil filled bite and the exquisitely nuanced frothy base with oil. It’s so yummy my dad couldn’t hide his approval.

I went for the Seafood (SGD 44) which is described as locally caught parrotfish, physallis beurre blanc, watermelon radish salad, red vein sorrel. There are 4 side dishes included with every main. I’ll explain them later. The grouper was mild tasting, but the Cape gooseberries adds a nice acidity to the dish. The creamy sauce was excellent. It’s overall a more subdued main dish with clean flavors.

Vegetable “restaurant” broth. This simple sounding side dish is made of 7 different types of organic vegetables. It’s served hot in a double walled shot glass you can pick up and slurp. I really enjoyed the intense and varied flavors within, as did my dad. He was very impressed.

Organic watermelon radish with black pepper sauce had dashi jelly, Tahitian vanilla and wild whole green pepper mixed in. I thought that was very interesting. It’s an unusual flavor combination but I like it.

Yacon and tapioca with sambal ikan bilis and red chilli achaar. This small side dish is absolutely packed with flavor! The anchovy sauce is so intense tasting. It goes very well with the creamy element and milder tasting tapioca. Excellent combination. My dad liked this a lot.

Snow pea and beetroot salad with fermented tamarillo dressing was done competently but the light flavors made this more of a palate cleanser. Nothing wrong with that, the different intensities in flavor help balance things out.

My dad went for the Vegetable (SGD 32) which was described as 48 hour caramelized orange, aged carnaroli rice, roasted yacon, Carles Roquefort. Roquefort Carles is a famous unpasteurized artisan blue cheese. It was intense! So rich and complex. We both loved it! There’s bits of orange fruit to cut through the strong flavors sprinkled on the dish. We both enjoyed this tremendously. The carnaroli rice is very different from our rice – each grain is distinct and firm. Very well executed.

Dessert was pickled lemon and cranberry ice cream with clove and creme fraiche. This was a sublime end to our lunch. The bright, acidic flavors of the ice cream finished the meal on a delightful note. I always feel acidic desserts work better than chocolate ones. My dad, not being a big dessert fan, finished everything on his plate. That’s how splendid it was.

The service at Nouri was extremely good. All the waiters and chefs were very friendly and attentive. I dropped my napkin and they promptly changed it. Chef-owner Iven Brehm came over to introduce every dish and served us personally, which was an excellent touch. One of them remembered I wanted to take a photo with Chef Ivan and prompted me as we were about to leave. The prices for lunch was very reasonable too! We spent SGD 102 (RM 310) in total. There’s a SGD 5 charge per pax for their water but I don’t mind it at all. I’ll definitely be back for dinner! I feel Nouri has great potential to move to 2 Michelin stars in the future.

Carlsberg has the best events. You’ll never lack for delicious food, refreshing beer and great company. I was lucky enough to be part of 300 people invited to a preview of “Probably The Best Party”. Carlsberg showcased the First Prize of a promotional campaign for guests and media. I repeat, this will be an actual one-of-a-kind experience for 50 lucky winners and 80 of their friends. You’ll get to choose a venue and theme of your choice if you win. You’ll be the most popular guy in your friend list!

There are five themes that winners can choose from – Oriental, Kollywood, German, Sports or Karaoke Party. The Roof was transformed into a magical wonderland to give the guests a taste of what the winners will get to experience. There are also different themed food at each venue e.g. Indian food at Kollywood, Bavarian fare at German, snacks at Sports.

I started out my night with the Oriental Party at Yezi. I did a detailed survey of all the themes and decided this offered the best selection of food items. You have slices of fresh fish and huge prawns ready to go into the steamboat broth. I probably ate 4 plates of fish slices, but none of the shrimp coz I’m lazy to peel them. It was delicious! I tried all their soup bases and my favorites are the truffle and Shaoxing wine ones.

I managed to glean the recipe of their delectable dipping sauce from the owner. It’s coriander stalk boiled with soy sauce and sugar. Simple, yet yummy.

The first performance of the night was a duo of Oriental pole dancers who mesmerized the crowd. I believe the only eyes not on them were watching through a viewfinder or mobile phone screen.

Kollywood Party @ Ballers was home to a really hype Indian performance that had the guests dancing along. I was tempted to as well and would have if I wasn’t carrying my backpack from work. I came here straight from the office.

German Party at Signature had a band and the Carlsberg promoters got everyone to do the chicken dance. I had fun singing along to the band. Crowd favorites like YMCA were played and we did the hand movements to go along with it.

Sports Party @ SCORE features sports themed performances and had footballers doing tricks.

Karaoke Party at Play was where we adjourned for the rest of the night. This was my favorite theme due to the insane performance by Mad August. They played everything from Cantonese rock classics to Nirvana. It was excellent. We drank and sang along and had tons of fun.

There were lots of interactive activities like Loudest POP Challenge, Giant Stein Challenge etc. The free flow of beer and food made it a very festive environment. We were given a pass to get chopped at each station for a goodie bag which we were supposed to redeem at the end of the night. I promptly forgot to do that coz I overindulged in the amber fluid. I could barely get into a Grab as it was. An excellent night of fun! I had a blast.

BTW, there have already been three lucky First Prize winners in this promotion! These 3 will be partying with 80 of their friends in the upcoming weeks. The campaign runs till end of November and there will also be three Grand Prize winners who will each enjoy an all-expenses paid trip with five friends for “Probably The Best Winter Party” in Copenhagen, Denmark. I would rather win this than the First Prize party coz I’ve never been to Denmark. Haha.

Grab your chance to win “Probably The Best Party” by checking the inside of the bottle caps of big bottles when you enjoy Carlsberg or Carlsberg Smooth Draught at participating coffee shops and food courts. If you drink at bars and pubs, you can check your Gift Cards when you’re there.

Supermarkets, hypermarkets and ecomm platforms are not left out coz the Gift Cards will be included in the inner panel of Carlsberg and Carlsberg Smooth Draught 6-can packs! You will also receive a Gift Card for purchases RM 15 and above at convenience stores.

My dad and I are both Heng Hua from Putien. The Heng Hua diaspora is one of the smallest groups in Malaysia. I thought it’ll be a great idea to bring him for dinner at PUTIEN, Kitchener Road. PUTIEN serves authentic Heng Hua cuisine. They have many branches in Singapore and Malaysia but only the original Kitchener Road one has a Michelin star. I’ve met many people who swear by the food here and it’s the only PUTIEN they’ll eat at.

I asked my sister to call them coz they only accept phone reservations but for some reason they didn’t have my name on the ledger when we arrived. Luckily, we were able to share a table with another duo. The Kitchener Road outlet is exceedingly packed – I saw a guy trying to secure a 30 min slot via walk-in. He claims he’ll be able to finish eating and be out within half an hour!

I ordered a few of their signature dishes to try. PUTIEN furnished us with complimentary pomelo from Putien in China as an appetizer. It was pink and sweet with very little bitter notes. I also like the attention to detail – they served it on a bed of shaved ice.

PUTIEN Sweet & Sour Pork with Lychees (SGD 13.90 for small) is their flagship and it tastes amazing! I love sweet & sour pork but a lot of the dishes in zi char restaurants are done as a mere afterthought with not much attention paid to it. It has become a pedestrian dish but PUTIEN’s version has a crispy exterior wrapping tender whole pork chunks with a delicately sweet sauce. It’s well balanced and very moreish. 10/10! It’s the best version of sweet and sour pork I’ve ever eaten. I love the lychees too. Yum.

PUTIEN Bian Rou Soup (SGD 4.80/pax) is something my hometown of Sibu is famous for as well. It’s minced pork in a wrapper but PUTIEN does a higher end version of it. The pork is chilled, never frozen, and pounded using a mallet instead of a chopped with a cleaver. The wrapper they use is gossamer thin and delicate. It’s very good! It tastes like the ones we get in Sibu but a lot more sophisticated – better rice wine, higher quality vinegar etc.

Homemade Bean Curd (SGD 10.90 for small) was my dad’s selection. He loves tofu and he’s a bit of a tofu connoisseur. It’s something he always orders when we have dinner, so I’ve also eaten a lot of tofu by proxy. This is very exquisite – soft, yet firm tofu with a nice textured “crust”, an intricate silken sauce and well-balanced flavors. It tastes like one of my dad’s favorites from Rejang Park in Sibu but superior in execution. Delicious.

“100-second” Stewed Yellow Croaker (SGD 13.80) is another one of their famed dishes. It’s a type of fish found in Putien that has been steamed for just 100 seconds in a claypot. Unfortunately, this fish has a lot of bones. By a lot, I mean every single minute piece has 100 bones inside. You’ll probably not enjoy this if you don’t like bones in fish. Neither my dad nor I liked this, which wasn’t really helped by the lack of flavor.

Fried Heng Hwa Bee Hoon (SGD 9.80 for small) is a must order here. This is a Chinese National Intangible Cultural Heritage item and the noodles are milled by hand in Putien. There’s quite a lot of seafood under the dish – clams, prawns etc. The noodles are nicely textural with a bit of a bite and there’s a lot of smokiness. Lots of wok hei. It goes very well with their sweet and sour lychee pork.

You must add the PUTIEN Spice Mum Chilli Sauce to the bee hoon to kick it up a notch. Their chilli sauce is excellent! Spicy, acidic and appetizing. I even bought a bottle to bring back home. It usually retails for SGD 6.80 but they had SGD 1.80/bottle promotion as part of their 18th anniversary celebrations.

The cashier gave me a pair of PUTIEN branded chopsticks as a free gift when I paid the bill! I thought that was cool. I love food related souvenirs.

PUTIEN Kitchener Road has very attentive service. I told our waitress I’ll serve myself coz I wanted to take photos first. The waitress noticed I wasn’t using the bowls they provided for the 100-second croaker and told us it tastes better with the soup and served us when she saw I was done with my pictures. The food was also delicious! It tastes super familiar to us, which means the food in Sibu is authentic Heng Hua too, despite being away for several generations. Everything tastes like home but better executed! The bill came up to just SGD 67 (RM 200) which is very reasonable! Recommended!

I’m not the type of person that goes gaga over desserts. I am faintly bemused by the parade of unicorn shakes, cheese drinks, bingsu and HK egg waffles that has taken over the minds of the populace by storm. I enjoy desserts, I just don’t normally seek them out. Tarte by Cheryl Koh was an exception. I made a pilgrimage after my Shisen Hanten lunch so I could check them out. Cheryl bakes all of the tart bases here personally!

Cheryl Koh was awarded Asia’s Best Pastry Chef 2016 by S.Pellegrino’s 50 Best list. She’s also the resident pastry chef of 2 Michelin star Les Amis. That’s very impressive credentials and the tarts she serves has an equally impressive price tag. Tarte by Cheryl Koh sells each small tart for SGD 10 (SGD 11 for dine in) which is high even by Singaporean standards. Despite that, I saw a constant stream of people dropping in to takeaway some tarts. I wanted to experience the café so I ordered a latte (around SGD 8) to go with my sweet tart.

I asked the girl which tart she thinks is best and she recommended the seasonal fig tart (SGD 11). There are beautiful slices of fresh figs on top of fresh cream and a buttery, crumbly tart base. The flavors go very well together, and they’re accentuated even more by my palate-cleansing latte. Their coffee is by Gryphon Coffee (a small batch roaster) and it’s very tasty! I was also amazed by how delicious the fig tart is. It’s mildly sweet so it’s not cloying. This is perfection in a tart!

I also ordered a pistachio tart (SGD 10) to go since I like their takeaway box. There are crumbs of pistachios on top of pistachio cream and their faultless buttery tart base. Delectable! All the tarts at Tarte by Cheryl Koh are newly made. They don’t keep a lot of inventory and there’s a constant stream of freshly baked tarts appearing. It’s a little costly but well worth the money. This is the quintessential representation of a perfect tart. 11/10!

Let me share with you one of the best things I’ve eaten this trip. It doesn’t have a Michelin star but it has won the Bib Gourmand award for three years running – ever since the inception of Michelin Guide Singapore. I hesitate to use superlatives but Kok Sen truly is Flavortown! I should add that I came here with a friend after our 1 Michelin star Labyrinth dinner so the review isn’t colored by my hunger. It’s even more impressive considering I was slightly full, or at least, satiated.

Kok Sen is best described as a zi char restaurant. It has been serving up favorites for over 50 years! There’s no air-conditioning and the place is extremely packed. You’ll need to queue up for a table and tables are shared for parties of less than 4-6. It’s very noisy and slightly uncomfortable but the premises are very clean, especially compared to Malaysian dai chow places.

This is the famous Kok Sen Big Prawn Hor Fun (SGD 18 for small). It’s one of their signature dishes. The thick, sticky sauce is made with peanuts 🥜, sweet chilli sauce 🌶️ and egg 🥚. It tastes like a cross between satay sauce and chilli crab 🦀. The sauce coats the hor fun perfectly. This comes to your table piping hot and it’s best eaten immediately. The dish is topped with 2 big prawns 🦐 sliced into halves that’s cooked to perfection. I don’t know how something can taste so good but this wok hei packed dish is divine!

I was lost in the incredible flavors and my tasting notes were reduced to Trump-like simple hyperbole. So prawny! So umami! So salty! So belacan-y! So yums! So much wok hei! So saucy! So so so recommended! I’m lost in Flavortown!! There you have it. All I wanted to do was to shovel more hor fun and sauce into my mouth. I couldn’t get enough! It was a compulsion – my brain was telling me to EAT MORE OF THIS GOODNESS! I wanted to immerse myself and swim in that awesome gravy. I highly recommend Kok Sen. 10/10. You need to come here and try this.

Who wants to sit under the blazing hot sun on uncomfortable stools strewn by the sidewalk with loud motorbikes and cars zooming inches away from you while you eat a plate of CKT? Surprisingly, quite a lot of people. I’m not sure if the exhaust smoke adds to the flavor but this no-name stall in Brickfields is packed during lunch. Or so it seems when it was at the sidewalk opposite. Now that it’s at a roomier five foot way, it doesn’t seem that crowded.

I’ve been wanting to eat here and my adventurous lunch kaki and her friend jio me today. Brickfields Char Kuey Tiaw is just a stall built with corrugated sheets at a pedestrian sidewalk near my office. It’s a mystery how a place like this received operating permits. I imagine it was grandfathered in back in the days coz you never see stalls like this outside of a permanent structure now. The famous cendol in Brickfields is located right beside it.

You need a certain type of person to appreciate the CKT here. If you insist on air-conditioned comfort, Brickfields Char Kueh Tiaw is not for you. It’s sweltering hot, very noisy and quite uncomfortable. I have to admit, I did wonder why people want to put themselves through this. I’m not a huge fan of getting soaked with sweat and walking around for the rest of the workday with BO. But I wanted to try it. They fry each plate of CKT individually and have a sign stating they’re open from 12:03 pm – 9:32 pm. I thought that was hilarious.

The cendol is slightly salty due to the unsweetened (or salted?) coconut milk. I like it but one of my lunch companions didn’t. I think the slightly salty cendol is nicely balanced. It’s a lot more interesting to eat this than a one-dimensionally sweet cendol. Your taste buds are a lot more interested and engaged with a sodium tinged cendol. 8/10.

I ordered the CKT with an extra fried egg (RM 8). I had been warned that the CKT here is not the dry wok hei type of affair. It’s a slightly soggy and moist plate. You will likely be let down on your first bite. The taste creeps up on you. There’s prawns, siham, lap cheong, and crispy fried pork lard – all the ingredients that’s supposed to be in a plate of CKT.

I prefer eating rice with lots of meat so maybe my verdict is slightly colored by my penchant for flesh. I’m inclined to be more carnivorous during mealtimes to get my protein macros in. It’s not a bodybuilding thing, I’ve always liked eating lots of meat products. Taste wise, it’s alright but not the best plate of CKT I’ve ever had. I give it 5/10 but you may like it more if you enjoy eating CKT.